For Pete's Sake
Geri Buckley
Berkley, Mar 2005, $5.99, 304 pp.
ISBN: 0425201538

Though her grandma's recent death has caused a cloud over the Langstown, Florida, annual Fourth of July gala, Pietra "Pete" Lang plans to make this the best celebration ever. However, she runs into a slight problem when she and her friend Albert Rheinhold open up a freezer and finds inside the defrosting corpse of a blond with the tattoo "Miss Fritz." The victim is obviously her long-deceased grandfather's floozy.

Divorce attorney Danny Benedict finds Pete trying to dispose of the corpse. He is concerned as her brother Jackson is planning to run for state legislature while obtaining a divorce after ten years of marriage to wed a podiatrist. As Danny and Pete plot what to do, their initial attraction, already hotter than a Floridian summer, heats up; soon they are in love and he will do anything FOR PETE'S SAKE, not caring about her grandma's reputation or her brother's political ambitions.

Readers will appreciate the amusing, contemporary romance that will remind the audience of The Trouble With Harry. The storyline never takes itself too seriously as Danny and Pete struggle with proof that her beloved grandma killed her husband's lover. The romance is deftly handled as are Jackson's efforts to change wives while running for public office, but the tale belongs to a triangle populated by dead people.

Harriet Klausner